A Different Kind of Coffee House

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This is what we call "la casa de cafe" (i can´t find the accent symbol for the "e")

This is the building where they do the processing of coffee beans: peeling, drying, shelling, roasting, grinding and packaging. I´m sure I will have many more posts about coffee production because the harvest season is quickly approaching and in December I hope to help out with the picking or whatever else is possible.
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Here are some shots of the road we´ve been working on. There are three short-term mission groups here this week and one of the three projects people are working on this week is: building a road from the back of la casa de cafe up to the coffee plantation. This road is important because since they started processing the coffee cooperatively through the church each of the farmers/harversters has had to carry the 100 lb. bags of coffee beans down the hill on their backs. And because the mission is planning on expanding the coffee production, they find that a road would be a very helpful endeavor, ergonomically speaking.

I had heard we were going to be working on the coffee road, but when i got to the actual sight, I was shocked at the steep, rocky surfaces and had a hard time imagining that this would ever be a navigatable road.


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It was great to watch all the teenagers and other long term volunteers working so hard together.

We´ve Moved...

Lately it has been hard to blog at the pace that we´ve been living life and traveling::: through Europe, visiting old friends in Germany and Switzerland, and exploring rich scenery in Italy and Paris, New England with family and Texas with family. So I feel like i´ve left things out, but oh well, maybe i will ocasionally reflect anachronistically.

Anyways, we´ve moved to San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala on Lake Atitlàn for 6 or so months. We are volunteering-serving at the San Lucas Mission mostly to watch and learn about all of the wonderful things that this church parish is doing to reach out to the community in the love of Jesus. It seems like every week of our time here will look different.


Today is DAY 3: We had the privilege of accompanying 2 dentists to a small village about 20 minutes away by the back of a pick-up truck. There was an American and a Guatemalan dentist extracting teeth today. Matt and I helped set up the area, sanitized the utensils and assisted in patient care. Here are some photos.


This is Matt and another long term volunteer, Garret, carrying a large table from a family´s home to the local school where we set up the dental clinic for the day.





This is a shot of the set-up before we started. Notice how long the line is: many, many Guatemalans suffer from tooth aches and decay and some waited in line for hours to see the dentists. The two dentists working with us today saw 45 patients and extracted 75 rotting teeth.


Here we are at the sanatizing station, God gave both of our stomachs much grace watching teeth get pulled and cleaning supplies all day long. =) Once again, we were so privileged to get to tag along and experience this.



*** My main question was: how do they organize all this? and the answer seems to be that most of these villages at least in this area have a "health promoter" who has contact with a local coordinator who is in touch with medical groups in the area. So the coordinator calls up a village "health promoter" and tells him to spread word in the village that a dentist is coming next Tuesday at 10:00am to pull out any rotting teeth in this example. I was super impressed at the communication between villages.

Apple-Pickin-Goodness

~ : ~ I Heart Connecticut ~ : ~


We went apple picking with Matt's parents while visiting them last week. It was such a refreshing time.




Even though most of the apple trees were already well-picked through and most of the leaves had already fallen -- I love New England in the Fall. I feel like i come alive in thickly forested areas. Leaves make my heart sing.







I'm so glad we got a taste of Fall before heading off to the tropical, highlands of Guatemala.

Under the Tuscan Sun

This was a much needed breath of fresh air, gazing out over the Tuscan countryside on a wonderfully sunny day. The rental and navagation of the tiny white auto was quite intense and stressful - so i am very thankful that we had nice weather and lovely vistas to enjoy as we detoxed from our stressful travels.







The perfect end to a satisfying day, sipping a glass of wine at a family run restaurant with the dog shuffling along at our feet.

















I noticed as we were bathing in the light of the sunset that the family dog was equally interested in the beautiful sunset. I didn't have time to perfectly frame the photo, but i loved catching the dog catching the sunset. it struck me as quite the beautiful scenario.





Here we are at Rocca della Macie, our favorite "visit a vineyard, sample their wine" experience for sure. They actually sell this wine at the Olive Garden and we were shocked to find out that a few Olive Garden chefs actually visit the vineyard every year to study Tuscan cooking-haha.





a quaint and ancient Chiesa in San Dalmazio, Tuscany, Italy